Sesame Street Blog

Setting up the nursery. The rite of passage most mothers, I suspect, look forward to. Organizing all those shower gifts of cute clothing, diaper starter kits and breast pump equipment while awaiting our babies’ arrival seems to be one of those clichés that is most definitely based in truth.

However, when you’re on bedrest YOU CAN’T DO IT. You can’t even supervise unless you move a couch into the room. All our baby shopping has been online only. I set up a registry without the fun of actually seeing and touching possible cribs, blankets, or even those little, snuggly burrito-like baby wraps. If anything, it would have been a good laugh with my hubby. Luckily, our babies’ nursery will be very close to our bedroom through an attached bathroom (or maybe not so lucky, we’ll find out). So at least I could hear Marty and his brother moving my office furniture out and boxes from baby stores hauled in, hear the spackling and rolling of the yellow paint we picked out—that is until the latex paint smell made me nervous and I moved to the downstairs pull-out couch. I feel this is yet again another ritual I’m missing because of my prescribed bedrest. Frustrating! Disappointing! Although he has done a lovely job now that it’s painted.

The last thing I needed on bedrest was to get a stomach virus! Marty caught it either from a colleague in karate class or his brother but in his kindly efforts taking care of my meals, I finally succumbed. It’s particularly frustrating when I’m so isolated from everyone and everything upstairs in bedrest land. You’d think I had much more of a chance of catching something from my dogs. I’d understand if I was riding subways grasping a city of germs on every pole. But no. So here I am with my short cervix and gestational diabetes—as if that isn’t enough to contend with carrying twins—and on comes a tsunami of my digestive system, all contents escaping as fast as it can out whichever direction gravity feels is best. Ever wonder if you did something in a past life that suddenly the universe starts to hurl flaming mud pies at you? Well, today I’m angry at the universe for throwing these flaming mud pies! Our little family didn’t need this!

I knew very quickly as every ounce of fluid I possessed seemed to be leaving my body and learned that bile really is a bright, almost Kermit green, that I needed to go to Labor and Delivery before I was going to be going into labor and deliver. The wise caregivers at Danbury Hospital quickly had me on an IV for fluids, anti-contraction medicine and anti-nausea medicine. After an uncomfortable night on a bed that I guess is meant for birthing but could serve for water boarding, they sent me home. Two babies still inside and kicking and seemingly unperturbed by the event and cervix thin but still closed.

I am still angry though. And in the world according to Sesame Street, it’s okay to be angry, if you’re 3 or 46.

This is later in my pregnancy but they did this a bunch of times when I was in for the evil invader virus.

It is not a failure to ask for help. The Protestant work ethic drilled into me by my father makes me FEEL like it is while I struggle to just turn off the alarm clock. So, if life is a classroom, this is a good one for me to write on the chalkboard. It’s okay to need help. I have been accused in the past of trying to get an “A” with God. This situation will not ruin my report card!

Asking for help is also very positive in many ways. My relationship with Marty has gotten deeper as our roles are merging and shifting. I get my own breakfast, but Marty brings me my other meals and snacks. If he is at the studio shooting the show, he lines small meals up along the window to keep them cool, and I retrieve them on a return trip from the bathroom.

He says he enjoys taking care of me, finding files and scripts I need, picking up everything I knock over behind the bed. He claims to like hearing “honey pie” echoing down from our bedroom, so I should believe him, right? Still, dependency is very hard for me to accept. I’m used to being the one who gets everything done, keeps all household systems go. Now, I’m a child having children!

Nell, Beary and Ruby hoping for a bite of oatmeal Marty brought me for breakfast.

Mail Box

Like your family we have twins, boy/girl, that turned three last month. I saw your blog entry for January and it looks like we have something in common, potty training twins. Like one of your girls, my son WILL NOT pee in the potty but his sister was doing well until she caught on to "Bubbie" not trying. I was just letting things run their course but our local pre-schools/mommy day out programs require the children to be potty trained and this mommy needs a day out. Bribery isn't working. Have you had any success?

I read in 40 Years of Life on the Street about an incident involving Snuffy's puppet where a sombrero caused the wood frame to collapse on you and Bryant Young. Did they rebuild the puppet after that or did they just make a new one?

I just wanted to say thanks for the blog. My daughter Kylie (who just turned two yesterday) loves to ask if we are going to see "the babies." Thank you so much to you and Marty for bringing the joy of Sesame Street into our lives every day.

I've noticed that there are fewer Muppets and people in an episode now than there were twenty years ago. Does everyone show up on the set for filming days or only certain ones? Who decides who gets to play the Anything Muppets? There are some voices I hear more than others.